


On The Breeze

by blithelybonny



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 11:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3975949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithelybonny/pseuds/blithelybonny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terry stands apart at Severus’s funeral and contemplates what could have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On The Breeze

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Rare Pair Shorts [Number Game Fest](http://rarepair-shorts.livejournal.com/534311.html) on Livejournal.

Terry stands a bit off to the side of the small group of mourners, straight-backed and proud, as he ignores the confused glances and snippets of judgmental whispers that carry on the wind. It’s typical, he thinks, that to the last the man doesn’t receive any of the respect to which he is entitled, whether for his role as a professor or as a hero. Instead, these stupid children use their time in his presence to grumble under their breath and speculate about things they cannot possibly understand. They don’t belong here, and it angers him that they’re even allowed.

He wishes that he had thought to come at a more private time, but grief does funny things to brilliant minds. Padma had intended to join him at the service, but she hadn’t been able to choose an appropriate set of robes, and so he had left her alone in the common room as she applied color-changing charms, switching her robes from black to deep green to navy in endless succession.

But he shouldn’t have to come at a private time. This should be sacred space. He opens his mouth to shout at the lot of them, scream with the kind of fervor he once had for rebellion against the Carrows’ tyranny, but he can’t find any words. He can’t find any passion. Severus must have taken it all with him when he died.

A light summery breeze picks up and ruffles through his too-long hair, and a gasp tears itself from his throat at the feel of a hand on the back of his neck. He’d know those fingers anywhere from the number of times he watched them elegantly slice wormwood -- the number of times he felt them sift through the hair at the back of his neck and draw upwards in an arc from his occipital to his parietal bone to rest there, full-palmed, claiming.

Terry turns his head just so, even though he knows that he won’t find anything there. Severus would never have become a ghost. No, he would have taken the opportunity of death to be reunited at last with the woman he loved always. He would not have chosen to stay for the young man with whom he found comfort during the endless horrific nights at Hogwarts under the Dark Lord’s regime, no matter that those nights were some of the most profound experiences of Terry’s life.

The hand slides up and rests as it always does, and Terry shivers against the feel of it. He wants so badly for it to be real. He wants to turn his head as he always does next so that Severus’s hand can come down to cup his cheek, his jaw. He wants the calloused thumb to draw along the line of his bottom lip until he parts them and sucks the digit into his mouth. He wants to hear the rumbling timber of Severus’s voice form the rare words of praise. He wants...

Instead, he holds his place, straightens up impossibly further and closes his eyes against the onslaught of what could have been. It doesn’t do to dwell on things that cannot be: hadn’t Severus told him that once before all this? That what they have belongs to a very specific set of circumstances that would be unlikely to repeat themselves? But he can’t forget, and he can’t ignore the hollow ache that’s settled behind his ribs. His heart feels sluggish, stuttering along because it has to do, rather than because it wants to do.

Terry feels the thumb across his mouth, and his lips part on instinct. “I miss you,” he whispers to the breeze, willing it to carry.

**Author's Note:**

> Return to [Livejournal](http://rarepair-shorts.livejournal.com/538620.html)!


End file.
